The Counterfeit Gentleman Read online

  Moments later she was free of most of the sodden fabric, and pulling her around behind him, Digory showed her how to hang onto his shoulders so that he could have both his arms and legs free. Then keeping his head above water, he began an easy sort of breaststroke. It was slow, but he could maintain it for hours without tiring.

  The girl was silent at first, and then she whispered, “There is something over there in the fog—to our left and a bit ahead of us.”

  Digory’s crew had frequently told him he had the luck of the devil, and apparently they spoke the truth, for his boat was bobbing peacefully about fifteen feet away.

  Changing direction, he moved to intercept it. “If you can hang on to the gunwales while I get in, then I can help you climb in.”

  A few minutes later they were safely on board, and Digory unshipped the oars and began to row with a steady rhythm toward Carwithian Cove, the only place he could be sure the kidnappers would not go to—at least not until the next day.

  His thoughts were less easy to control, and when he looked at his passenger, his pulse began pounding in his ears.

  Her arms were covered with gooseflesh, and her lips were quite blue, and she should not have been in the least bit appealing. Perhaps it was because her wet garments disguised none of the feminine curves of her body and legs, or because he had just been in intimate contact with her that he felt an unexpected surge of desire.

  Even knowing she was too far above his station for him to have such thoughts did not prevent him from wanting to take her in his arms and warm her in the way men have warmed women down through the centuries.

  If only the circumstances had been different—if only she were a village girl and not a well-born heiress—he would have cheerfully stolen a few moments of pleasure.

  “I have always disapproved of ladies who dampened their dresses,” Miss Pepperell said, beginning to shiver violently. “Now I am even more inclined to think them fools, for in truth I am finding it most uncomfortable.”

  He could tell the very moment when she realized how her remark had served merely to direct his attention to her womanly curves, because hot color rose swiftly to her cheeks, and she immediately lowered her eyes.

  “My jacket is folded up there behind you—feel free to make use of it,” he said.

  Of course it was possible that it was not her own words, but rather the carnal desire she had seen in his eyes that had shattered her composure.

  Once she was adequately clothed, she regained her poise, which only made his own wayward thoughts seem more despicable in comparison.

  Looking up, she met his eyes squarely and said calmly, “I am afraid that I do not know the proper thing to say when someone saves your life. All I can say is thank you.”

  “You needn’t thank me,” he said curtly, annoyed with where his thoughts had led him—and angry with himself for not being able to ignore the tension between them. “But I would appreciate some explanation of what is going forward. Since it is obvious that your recent companions were not interested in catching fish this morning, could you perhaps tell me how you came to be with them in that boat?”

  “It is a long story, and it is hard to know where to begin.” She paused, then continued, “My father was Baron Pepperell. I do not remember much about him because he died when I was three years old. A distant cousin inherited both the title and the estate, so my mother and I went to live with her father. She passed away less than a year later, leaving my grandfather to raise me. And he died two years ago in August, leaving me in the care of Aunt Euphemia, Lady Clovyle, that is. She is my father’s sister.”

  Although Miss Pepperell did not say so directly, it was obvious from her voice that she had been much more attached to her grandfather than to her aunt.

  “Is she the only relative you have still living?”

  “On my father’s side. On my mother’s side, however, I have cousins galore, but only three who are likely to be implicated in the plot you have just spoiled. Or I should say, any one of the three had a motive for hiring those two men.”

  “Three cousins, each with a motive,” Digory said, stopping rowing for a moment so that he could listen for the sound of the buoy marking the reefs by Penistone Head. Reassured by its bass voice that he was still on the proper course, he resumed both his rowing and his questioning.

  “I suppose money is involved somewhere in your story.”

  “A great deal of money,” Miss Pepperell said, her voice bleak. “My grandfather, James Granville, was the younger son of the Earl of Granwood. In his youth grandfather quarreled with his father and older brother and left home. Years later he came back to England with a fortune in his pocket and married my grandmother, who was herself the granddaughter of a duke.

  “They had only one child, my mother, who had but one child, me, which means I am the sole heiress to my grandfather’s estate. Unless, of course, I die unmarried before I reach the age of one and twenty, in which case Wilbur, Gervase, and Inigo Harcourt will all inherit equal shares. They are the sons of my grandfather’s only sister, who married the Reverend Percival Harcourt.” She was quiet for a long moment, then she added what was only too obvious. “Apparently one of them has decided that a third part of my grandfather’s estate is worth committing murder for.”

  Digory considered what she had told him. “It would seem to me that the easiest way to circumvent whichever cousin is plotting against you would be to marry. Surely you have had ample suitors?”

  “Indeed,” she said, and there was a touch of bitterness in her voice, “with both beauty and fortune, as well as the proper family connections, I have been quite the belle of the ball. But how can I determine which, if any, of the young men courting me love me, and which ones love only my grandfather’s money?”

  “A common, yet not insurmountable problem with heiresses, I believe.”

  “If it were only that, I would take my chances and hope for the best. But suppose...”

  She was quiet for a moment, and then he finished the sentence for her. “Suppose one of your cousins is conspiring with one of your suitors, do you mean?”

  “Oh, I am so glad you said that. After the number of apparent accidents that have befallen me, I feared I was inventing danger even where there was none. But if you see the precariousness of my position also, then I am not simply being hysterical.”

  “Accidents? Tell me about them.”

  She hesitated. “I feel so foolish mentioning them. Aunt Euphemia—she is my guardian and is sponsoring me this Season—insists that I have been making a fuss about nothing. To her way of thinking, the accidents were the result of mere happenstance, and if my imagination had not been overly stimulated by the reading of too many lurid novels, I would never have indulged in such flights of fancy.”

  Miss Pepperell scowled and thrust out her lower lip. “She went so far as to tell me that if I continued to cast aspersions on the character of such honest, upright, God-fearing men as my mother’s cousins, who are in every way respectable, then I myself belonged in Bedlam.”

  “I would say that being thrown overboard by two men who openly admit that they were paid to kill you rather refutes any suggestion that you might be imagining things. But tell me more about the other supposed accidents.”

  There were now subtle differences in the sound of the sea, which meant they were approaching the shore.

  “Well, to begin with, after one evening party I became quite ill. Tainted oysters, my aunt said. But no one else was the least bit indisposed, and even though I knew it was farfetched, I suspected poison.”

  “Were your cousins present at the party?”

  “Yes ... and they each, at one time or another, brought me something to drink. I was sick for several days and weak for quite some time afterward. Then, only a sennight after I began to go out in society again, I rode out to Hampton Court with a group of friends. On the way home, the cinch on my saddle broke, and I was saved only because my escort was right beside me when it happened, and he ma
naged to catch me as I was falling.”

  “And had the cinch been cut?”

  “No, it was merely old and rotten, so there did not appear to be anything sinister about the accident. But our groom insisted it was not the same cinch that had been on my saddle when I left our stable. I believed it to be a second attempt on my life, but Aunt Euphemia insisted that the groom was fibbing in order to protect himself from being turned off for failing to do his job properly. She discharged him over my objections.”

  “And your cousins? Were they at Hampton Court when you were?”

  “Who is to say? We spent an hour or so wandering through the maze, and anyone could have come and tampered with my saddle and still been well away from there by the time we emerged from the shrubbery.”

  “And were there any other suspicious incidents?”

  “Not only suspicious, but nearly fatal. A few days later, when I was shopping with my maid, someone tried to shove me under the wheels of a heavily loaded brewer’s wagon. My aunt insists someone merely jostled me accidentally, and of course I have no evidence—nothing to prove that she is wrong in her opinion. And yet in my own mind I have not the slightest doubt that the blow was deliberate ... and that the attempt came within a hairsbreadth of being successful.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that your aunt herself might be aiding and abetting one of your cousins?”

  Miss Pepperell laughed. “If you knew my aunt, you would know how preposterous that idea is. To begin with, she is my father’s sister, and so could not, under any circumstances, inherit anything from my grandfather, who was my mother’s father.”

  “One of your cousins might be paying her.”

  “She does not spend all her income as it is, and she has frequently told me that I am her heir. She has been most generous to me in the past, and I see no reason to doubt her on that score. But the real reason I cannot suspect her is that the rules of etiquette do not cover the subject of ridding oneself of a superfluous niece. As a child, my aunt learned how one should comport oneself in society, and I do not think she has ever deviated from the proper path.”

  Digory had met similar people, not only among the haut ton, but even in the little village in Cornwall where he had been raised, and he was forced to conclude that Miss Pepperell was undoubtedly correct in her assessment of her aunt’s character. Which was indeed fortunate, since her aunt was living in the same house.

  “In any case, after the last supposed accident, I could not stop looking over my shoulder, and I began to notice two men who seemed to be loitering in my vicinity much too often. I begged my aunt to let us retire to Sussex, where I have an estate, but she refused to consider leaving London in the middle of the Season—or rather, until I have acquired a husband. Last week I became so afraid, I resolved not to leave my room until my birthday. Despite my aunt’s scoffing at such extreme—and to her way of thinking, unnecessary—measures, I felt there was nothing else to be done.”

  “And?”

  “And on Monday last—I am not entirely sure how long ago that was, because those horrible men kept dosing me with laudanum whenever I woke up enough to swallow it. What day is it today?”

  “Thursday,” Digory said. The sound of the surf was louder now, and the fog was becoming lighter.

  “Then it was only three days ago, while my aunt was at the opera, that the larger of the two men who had been following me gained entrance to my grandfather’s house. How he managed that, I have no idea, although my cousins have each had ample opportunity over the last several years to make copies of the house keys.

  “In any event, the man called Jacky-boy came into my room while I was reading, and before I could cry out, he had gagged me and trussed me up and was lowering me out the window to his waiting henchman, whose name I never heard. They brought me here to wherever we are.”

  “The south coast of Cornwall,” Digory said. “They were the men in the boat?” he asked, needing to be sure they were dealing with only two hired assassins and not four.

  “Yes,” the girl said bleakly.

  The bottom of the boat grated on the sand, and Digory shipped the oars, then climbed out and dragged the boat up onto the shore, well above the high-tide mark.

  Since it was virtually in his own backyard, Digory knew this cove well, and many a night he had helped haul kegs of brandy up from the beach to assorted hiding places. Quite isolated from passing traffic, both on land and at sea, it was perfectly designed for smugglers ... and for ambushes.

  A great many rocks and boulders lay scattered at the base of the low cliff, and some were sufficiently large to provide cover for a troop of preventatives intent upon seizing an illicit cargo—or for the band of smugglers who would be waiting tomorrow to capture a pair of would-be murderers.

  Holding out his hand to Miss Pepperell, Digory said, “Come now, we are almost home.”

  She was too chilled to walk well, and he had to support her with an arm around her waist. He led her along the base of the low cliff until they came to the narrow path, which they climbed, leaving behind them the sea and the fog.

  Chapter Two

  The man sitting in the darkest corner of the Double Anchor was not one of the London gentlemen who thought it amusing to frequent low dives in Soho. On the contrary, he was a man who appreciated elegance and luxury, and he was, moreover, a man who was determined to become accustomed to a great many more of the finer things in life.

  At the moment he was feeling especially pleased with himself. His scheme for removing the only impediment between himself and a vast fortune was proceeding in every minute detail precisely as he had planned it.

  Although the earlier fog had prevented him from actually witnessing his cousin being rowed out to sea, the mists had cleared enough by the time the boat returned that he had been able to see it held only his two hirelings.

  They were a nasty pair, and they had made assorted threats as to what would happen to him if he failed to keep his end of the bargain. But he trusted them no more than they trusted him. Only a fool believed that there was honor among thieves. Unlearned and unlettered they might be, but they were not too stupid to understand the basic principles of extortion.

  What had obviously never occurred to them was that he might not only be willing but also quite capable of shooting them through the heart rather than submitting to blackmail. At Manton’s he was adjudged to be a fine marksman, and as to scruples, his desire to cut short his cousin’s life should have made it clear to them that his conscience was obligingly flexible when money was at stake.

  What made this moment all the more amusing was the knowledge that the two scoundrels had no idea that he had followed them to Cornwall. It would never even occur to them that the red-haired, unshaven sailor watching them guzzle brandy might be the same person as the fastidious London gentleman who had daintily held a scented, lace-trimmed handkerchief to his nose to protect himself from the odoriferous fumes of Soho.

  The wig had been a veritable inspiration, but then every element of his plan was so well thought out, it was a pity more people could not admire the beauty, the sheer perfection of it all. As a strategist, he was without equal, a veritable nonpareil, a master of the art of intrigue and no small hand at disguises.

  No one could ever have the slightest suspicion that things were not as they appeared to be, which meant his success was assured.

  Jenny Cardin had seen an odd assortment of customers come and go at the Double Anchor, but something about the one now sitting in the corner with his hat pulled well down over his face bothered her.

  “ ’Tisn’t that he don’t look like a sailor, and he talks coarse enough,” she said to her husband, Tom, “but all the same there’s something disturbing about him, and I’d be willing to wager good money that he never sailed before the mast.”

  “You’re not one to spook easily; doubtless he’s a bad’ne.” Her husband slid a pint of ale across the counter to her. “Take him another drink on the house and see if you can’
t figure out what’s havey-cavey about him. Then if it looks like he’s going to cause trouble, I’ll have him out of here so fast his ears will still be ringing come Michaelmas.”

  he stranger said nothing when she set down the drink, not even so much as a word of thanks. But when she went back to the bar, Jenny was able to tell her husband what had aroused her suspicions. “It’s his hands; they’re as pink and soft as any lady’s,” she reported. “You s’pose he’s one of them white slavers, come to steal some of our Cornish maids away?”

  “He’s got no eyes for the girls, that one don’t,” her husband replied. “I’ve been watching him since you pointed him out, and all he’s doing is sitting there staring at them other strangers.” With the merest nod of his head, he indicated two men who were already well to go, although the sun was not yet high in the sky. “But whether he’s working with ’em or agin ’em, it’s too soon to tell.”

  “Suppose they’re all three meaning to rob us?”

  “Well, if they’re fixing to catch us off guard, I’d say they’re the ones what will be surprised.”

  The sunlight not only warmed Bethia, it also promised her life and safety. Her horrible nightmare was over at last ... or was it? Mr. Rendel was looking worried again. Could they still be in danger from the kidnappers? Might one of them be hiding behind that tree? Might they be creeping along on the other side of the low stone wall, waiting to jump out and grab her?

  “Do you think they will come after us?” she asked, her voice no more than a breathless whisper.

  “Who? Oh, you mean the men in the boat. No, they are doubtless celebrating in some tavern, dreaming of the wealth they think they will soon be collecting from their employer.” Mr. Rendel voice was calm, but his forehead was still creased.

  “Then why are you frowning? If it is not those villains, then what is worrying you?”